


you love, love, love

by soldierwitch



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, POV Bellamy Blake, demiromantic Bellamy Blake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierwitch/pseuds/soldierwitch
Summary: Love to Bellamy is reserved for family. Its overwhelming pull. The tidal wave of its demands on your soul and heart created by bonds of blood and friendship. And yet when he looks at Clarke there is a growing unknown feeling that is threatening to drown him in its intensity.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, y'all. Bellamy being on the aro spectrum has been a headcanon of mine for awhile now, and I've finally shaped up and incorporated that into a fic. I have very complicated thoughts on love and how it manifest, for good or for bad, and this fic will be an exploration of those thoughts. My intent is to cover season 1 to bellarke's return to Arkadia in season 4, so the fic will be mostly canon compliant with exception to its span of time. I'm just truly not about that 'they've only been down here for 6+ months' life. As such there's time jump in the middle of this chapter which would place the 100 on Earth for a little over a year. Anyway, happy reading!
> 
> The fic and chapter title is from [Love Love Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beiPP_MGz6I) by Of Monsters and Men

Bellamy hurdled down to Earth burning through the atmosphere with children he did not know, and did not care for, because of love. An all-encompassing love for his sister. The girl he would go to war for, would murder, kill, and die for because she is his family. His home. Loving Octavia is what Bellamy knows best because after his mother it is the only love he knows, and it is the only love he wants. Crash landing on Earth does not change this--love is a word he reserves for family. Bellamy half explains this over a campfire one night. 

He’s not in his cups, but he’s not completely sober either. His lips loosen under the influence of Monty and Jasper’s moonshine and yet he sips anyway and he stares into the fire. His sister is off with the Grounder again without permission, a goodbye, or a word about where they were going to be. She is 16, and she thinks she’s in love, so she leaves Bellamy notes. Always the same-- _Gone to see Lincoln. Be back later. Don’t come looking for me. I’m fine_. 

He knows Octavia sees her notes as a compromise. She’s not running off; she’s safe; she’s with Lincoln, she says as if that will stop him from thinking the worst. It’s not that Bellamy wishes that they were back on the Ark and Octavia’s world consisted only of him, their mother, and their housing unit. It’s just that his life made sense back then. His responsibility to her made him cautious of what he said in conversation and wary of the people he associated himself with--even infrequently and at a distance--but at least he knew exactly where she was going to be at any given moment. 

Now they are surrounded by trees that obscure his lay of a land that hide enemies who were born on its surface and have lived, bled, and died on its soil. Their heritage is rooted in this planet and he is a child of space. As intoxicatingly beautiful as Earth is, Bellamy is still not as sure-footed on the ground as he pretends to be and watching Octavia leap without fear or hesitance into her love of their life now terrifies him. There is too much to fear in the deep dark of their new home. Too much of the unknown to be comfortable with her gone from his side.

With a shake of his head, Bellamy tunes back into what the others are talking about around the fire. He can’t rid himself of the panic shaking its way into his fingers or the anxiety gripping his heart, but he can drink and that’s something at least.

Monty snorts into his cup as Jasper passionately and with a bit of a slur proclaims that love is love is love is love regardless of whether it cropped up upon seeing someone for the first time or appeared down the road between two people who have known each other for awhile. 

Bellamy holds in a scoff but of course Finn emphatically agrees as he tries to catch Clarke’s gaze and picks up from where Jasper trailed off.

“Love is what keeps us going,” Finn says. “Without it we’d be nowhere.” He rants about the crackle of tension that whips through two people as a connection builds between them. The electric dance of attraction that wakes you up in the morning and keeps you up at night. “You feel like you’ve never been more alive,” he says. “Like you’ve finally found a purpose and it’s being with this person, standing by them, holding them. It’s--”

“The kind of love that fades,” Bellamy interrupts having heard enough. “You’re talking about infatuation.”

“And what do you know about it?”

Bellamy smirks as he watches the flush spread across Finn’s cheeks. “I know that you’re full of shit and pretty words, Spacewalker, but not a lot of follow through.”

Miller sputters into his drink. Bellamy thumps him on the back as he coughs but doesn’t take his eyes off Finn who is clenching his fists.

Before Finn can reply, Clarke says that she agrees. Her eyes are trained on her cup, her shoulders tight, and her brows scrunched together. “We like to think it will grow into something more,” she says. “But it usually doesn’t. It comes and goes as quick as it appeared.”

Bellamy says, “Speaking from experience, Princess,” and instantly wants to take the question back. He’s raring for a fight, but his victim of choice is Finn not her. They’ve reached common ground, called a truce in order to lead, and this feels too close to friendly fire. He puts his cup down. “Clarke--”

She holds up her hand. “Yes, I’m speaking from experience.”

When Clarke looks up, she only has eyes for Bellamy. Her back straightens.

He sighs and gives a piece of himself in apology. “Well, in my experience, you don’t have to be in love with someone to make a bad decision. You just have to love them enough to overlook the consequences.”

“And the rest you live with.” 

Bellamy hears the crack of the seat belt whip as he looks at Clarke. Sees the memory of the guilt in her nod as she sanctioned every lash. The escalation of violence that they both participated in. Her with her allowance and him with his hands. A piece of Clarke died that day, and he doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive herself.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes, that's all you can do.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to get through your day, Blake?” Finn says spitefully.

“And my nights, Spacewalker,” Bellamy grits. “Just because you don't regret the things you've done for love doesn't mean the rest of us aren't aware of the kind of stain that can leave behind.”

“It’s different when you’re in love with someone,” Finn insists, still trying to catch Clarke’s eye. “Worth it.”

Bellamy laughs mirthlessly. “You still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if what you did was for family--”

“A friend,” Clarke cuts in. Her eyes are once again trained on her cup.

He nods and continues. “Or someone you’ve convinced yourself that you’re in love with. It doesn’t matter if it was “worth it.” In the end you have to live with what you did.”

“You saying you don’t believe in love transcending everything, Blake?”

Bellamy takes a moment to look at the boy. His 18th birthday came and went months ago and yet he’s still very much a child in Bellamy’s eyes. Still willing to recklessly trample through relationships as long as he gets what he wants. Finn has broken the hearts of two girls because he wasted no time giving his heart away to one when he’d already given it to to the other well before he landed on Earth. And yet he wants to talk about the transcendence of love as if Raven didn’t stomp back to the dropship because she grew tired of Finn pushing for Clarke to speak to him, look at him, do anything to acknowledge his existence. As if Clarke hasn’t spent the night with her shoulders hunched and body tight determined to ignore him, be a part of the group, and prove she’s fine.

Clarke answers in Bellamy’s place. “It doesn’t transcend; it overwhelms.”

 _Yes_ , he thinks. _That’s what it does. Love overwhelms no matter what form it takes_. 

He gives another piece of himself.

“I shot someone,” Bellamy says willing her to look at him. He wants her to know that she’s not alone in this feeling. Of being wrapped up in love and pushed by its need to protect regardless of what it takes from you as it gets its way.

She looks up, looks at him. “I tortured someone.”

He holds her gaze, ignores the way the others are staring at them as they speak.

“My sister poisoned herself to save a man she barely knew.”

“My best friend was willing to have me hate him for the rest of our lives, so I wouldn’t hate my mother.”

“I’ve lied.”

“I’ve lied.”

“I’ll kill.”

Clarke sniffs and wipes a tear away but doesn’t break eye contact with Bellamy. “I’ll kill,” she admits.

“For love.”

She nods. “For love.”

“That sounds corrupt,” Finn says crinkling his nose in mild disgust.

“It sounds like love,” Clarke says getting up to leave. She doesn't say goodbye just walks away toward the dropship.

Bellamy watches her go and signals for one of his guards to stop Finn from following her.

Nearly a year later, keeping Finn away from Clarke isn't as simple as putting a guard between them. Not after he killed innocent men, women, and children in her name. 

Walking into the aftermath of the carnage, Bellamy wishes he had further explained about love and how it overwhelms. Like a wave. Maybe if he’d told Finn about the undertow, he could have prevented the boy’s drowning. His stomach turns as he sees the mad look that clears from Finn’s eyes, sees the way it twists into relief as he spots Clarke. 

Finn whispers, “I found you,” and Bellamy sees the moment Clarke’s world upends. The boy has left bodies at her feet, shrouded her once again in death, and Bellamy’s fists clench before his eyes widen and his grip relents. There is a sharp stab in his heart. One he has only felt when his mother or his sister has been upset by life or men or him. The impulse to fix what Finn has done burns wild through his blood, but it’s not just his instinct to help those who have been made helpless. It’s another light that’s been doused in Clarke’s eyes. 

Bellamy remembers the feel of her arms around his neck, the unintentional press of her lips against his shoulder, the way her eyes danced when she pulled back to look at him. There had been joy and relief written across her face, emotions he would have never thought she’d direct toward him and yet there they were. And now all of that is gone. Dead along with the people Finn slaughtered, and all Bellamy wants to do is rewind time for her. To make the decision to pull the boy closer to him rather than letting him spiral out in his quest to find her. Maybe he could have spared her and these people the grief that will live deep in their bones because of this day. Maybe then the light in her eyes would still be alive.

It’s the need that takes Bellamy by surprise. He’s no stranger to wanting to change things for someone, but he’s never needed to for anyone outside of his family. The devastation on Clarke’s face calls to him. Makes him walk beside her on the trek back to camp; one hand on his rifle, both eyes on their surroundings, and an ear to the relieved rumblings of Finn as he walks between Murphy and Octavia. 

“Clarke,” he begins, but she shakes her head.

“I can’t do words right now, Bellamy.”

He nods and remains quiet by her side, waits.

When Clarke does speak to him, it’s after they leave Finn with the council. 

(After the pitying look in her mother’s eyes. After _it’s not your fault_ goes unsaid but is still heard in the room. A statement Clarke cannot accept. Bellamy knows because her voice had gone as dead as her eyes. Clarke informed them of what happened, explained the potential repercussions, and left without looking at Finn or acknowledging his words to her.) 

They’re in her tent. She's shrugging off her jacket. 

Bellamy watches from the entrance, waits. 

“How many,” Clarke asks when she's finished. She’s not looking at him. Her hands are on her hips, her breaths short and deliberate like she’s holding herself together with every inhale and exhale.

“18.”

“I can’t fix this.”

“No,” he says, taking a step toward her.

“I want to.”

“I know.” He takes another step.

“They’re going to kill him.”

“We won’t let them.” Another step.

She looks up. “We can’t stop them.”

“We can try.”

Clarke’s lip trembles. “He murdered 18 people, Bellamy.”

He stands before her. “Yes.”

“And we're going to protect him anyway.”

He swallows. “Yes.”

“We’re wrong in this,” she says.

Bellamy wants to say that they aren’t wrong. That Grounders have been killing their people since they landed on Earth. That this is no different. But he watched a mother cradle her child to her chest and wail, his blood staining her hands. Saw a man weep over his father. Heard the crying of children desperately shaking the shoulders of their fallen parents. 

A boy took a gun into a village in search of a girl. He found her. He left the village awash in red. It is not the same.

Clarke sighs. “Like a wave.”

“What?”

“I told Finn it overwhelms,” she says. “I didn’t tell him it was like a wave. He drowned.”

Bellamy looks into Clarke's eyes and for a moment he sees the ocean. The shock of it makes him take a step back and look away from her. 

_I saw tidal waves in your father’s eyes_ , he remembers his mother said to him.

“Bellamy?”

 _He said he saw whirlpools in mine_.

“Bellamy?”

He shakes his head and backs up another step.

“What’s wrong?”

 _Your eyes are so blue_ , he thinks. _You've been flooding my world with unknown feelings, and I haven't thought of my mother's words in ages_. But he says, "Nothing."

Clarke accepts his answer, but Bellamy can see that she's fighting to keep her questions at bay.

"So, we agree," he asks in order to move past what he felt pass between them.

"Yes," she says walking to stand before him. "He's one of ours."

"And we protect our own."

Clarke nods. "Regardless of the consequences."

Bellamy did not think the consequences would be Clarke with Finn’s blood on her hands and Raven’s scream echoing into the night. When he sees Finn slumped over he thinks mercy as he did when Atom took his last breathe. But with him Clarke did what she knew was right. With Finn she did what she had to. The difference sits heavy on her shoulders, and Bellamy cannot share her burden, so he waits.

He’s been waiting since the dropship door closed. Bellamy does not know when he began to see waiting for Clarke as a part of their relationship. If he were a guessing man, he’d say the night he stopped wishing to die. Tree bark dug into his back. He was winded and shaken, but Clarke sat with him. A body laid at their feet. Two ill-begotten children of death. She spoke of need, listened to him confess his sins and his shame, and he felt absolved because she offered him forgiveness. “I’ll wait with you until you’re ready to go back,” she’d whispered. And now he’ll wait until she's ready to talk.

The trek to TonDC is fraught with tension. Bellamy walks beside Clarke, on guard. He feels the urge to comfort her, but what is there to say? A boy she loved is dead by her hands. It is not his forgiveness that she needs, so he speaks to her pragmatic mind in hopes to ease her broken heart. 

Mt. Weather looms like a spectre, and Bellamy has not forgotten their people. Clarke paid for an alliance with blood, he dare not waste her efforts or Finn’s life. They need an inside man. One willing to give his life to the mission. Bellamy would never ask that of someone else, so he volunteers himself. 

Clarke’s refusal does not surprise him. His plan is risky but it is the only one they have, and Bellamy knows she has no other options. Anticipating her reaction, however, does not stop him from bristling at her tone. Bellamy does not take orders from Clarke. He calls her princess, but he is not her soldier and this is not how they speak to one another. Being in this together means that she has to give him reason for her refusal. They have to talk about it. She does not get to tell him no and expect his obedience.

Bellamy steels himself for a fight, but instead he gets an admission that threatens to stop him in his tracks. She can’t lose him. There is a ‘too’ at the end of her sentence and it is significant but what Bellamy hears is that Clarke cannot do without him by her side. That she has placed a value on his life that is keeping her from making the best decision for their people. Clarke has found him worthy, and Bellamy hears the ocean crash in his ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is appreciated.


End file.
